Prompt For Ronovans Writing Challenge #11
Use the first line of one of your favorite song and begin your story with that line.
Maximum 300 words.

Within The Sounds of Silence

-Clarence Holm

“Hello darkness, my old friend!” I said to myself while drinking the smooth aged whiskey poured over the rocks. The ice cubes clinked when I set the glass down. Then I emptied my cash and pocket change on the bar, grabbed my hat, and headed for the door.

“Hey, you’re a buck short!” called the bartender. “Keep it!” I said as the door closed behind me.

I squinted in the afternoon sun as I trudged to my second-floor office in a brick building, just two blocks away. The building has been home to a number of main floor businesses, including a real estate office and a pawn shop.

Today none of that would matter.

The door to my office was visible from the top of the stairwell. What use to be a frosted glass now featured unfinished plywood and the broken deadbolt lock had been switched to a steel hasp holding a large padlock. Unfortunately, I’d found over the years that the lock’s bulk didn’t matter to my night time visitors. That’s why the office only contained a few items, a desk, two chairs and a couch – nothing of value to the neighborhood punks, who had long since stopped breaking in out of disappointment.

But none of that bothered me today.

I unlocked that door and switched on the overhead light. I sat down at the desk covered with a coffee cup and food stains left from over the years. I reached into my shoulder harness and pulled out the snub-nosed 38 that was my constant companion. I had only used it twice in business and both times I had missed, but both times that had been good enough.

“Today would change that.” I thought as I pulled the trigger.

https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/friday-fiction-with-ronovan-writes-prompt-challenge-11/